


someone i once loved

by rangerhitomi



Series: radical dreamers [10]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 07:59:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1502816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it takes a long time to forget how much you loved someone. maybe, durbe thinks, it would be better if he couldn’t remember nasch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	someone i once loved

Being human again is… different. The food is different, the music is different, the clothes are different, the science and history and technology are all different. The ale from his time as a knight no longer exists; in its place is a sickly-sweet “beer” that he cannot stand (apparently middle-schoolers shouldn't be drinking it anyway, despite the fact that Durbe is so much older than any middle school child) so he drinks coffee, which is bitter and hot but it gives him a jolt of energy to get him through his days at school. He still hates riding the bus, or a bike, or in a car; one good thing about Barian powers was that he could transport himself anywhere at will. Now it seems that he spends half his time walking or riding from one place to the next.

Nasch is different, too. He’s… less sympathetic than the young king he once was. Maybe it was a result of his experience living as the perpetual outcast Ryoga Kamishiro, but he doesn’t open up to anyone. He shows his concern for Yuma through advice thinly veiled as mild insults and the occasional trip to the hospital for a concussion or a sprained ankle or a nearly broken nose.   _Don’t do reckless stuff, Yuma_ , he always grumbles, but isn’t he the one being reckless?

That, at least,  _isn’t_ different.

Sometimes Durbe thinks that Fate would have been kinder to have wiped his memories of being human before giving him this life. How nice would it have been for Durbe to remember only the times they had as Barians. How nice would it have been for Durbe to forget that he and the young, handsome prince would sneak out in the dead of night and go for a ride on Mach over the moonlit ocean. How nice would it have been for Durbe to forget the way Nasch’s arms tightened around his waist and his face pressed into Durbe’s shoulder blades, and the muffled curses he yelled into Durbe’s back as Mach would abruptly swoop low, plummeting toward the water before shooting back up as Durbe laughed.

How kind Fate would be if it had let him forget how soft Nasch’s hands were, or how childish their first kiss was, or how Nasch would look away with a tiny smile after they exchanged goodnight kisses every night from then on.

How kind Fate would be if it let Durbe forget the anxiety and despair in his heart as he watched Merag die, and the helplessness he felt as Nasch cried in his arms, and how he had stood alone on the battlefield, waiting for Nasch to return from his battle with Vector, knowing he never would.

How kind Fate would be if it let him forget the emptiness he felt as he knelt over Mach’s body, the excruciating pain he felt as his former comrades thrust their swords into him, all missing his vitals so he suffered the most and the longest and all he could do was hold onto Mach’s body and pray to God, or the gods, or the sky that he could find some semblance of peace in his death.

All the while feeling the hatred and anger and betrayal in his heart.

Yes, Fate would have been kind. But it was not, and every night he watched Nasch suffer, every night he watched his friends die, and every night he relived his death, so when he woke, drenched in sweat and screaming, he was convinced he was dying once more.

But Fate had not been so unkind as to let him suffer alone.

“It was a dream,” Nasch whispers when he holds Durbe after he wakes, and it’s the same every night. Nasch doesn’t sleep much. The others don’t, either. The memories are  _there_  and they  _hurt_ in a way that no human could ever comprehend _._ But Nasch knows what he’s been through. They went through it together, after all.

Durbe clutches Nasch’s nightshirt as he forces steady breaths. “Why do we have to remember?”

It’s not the same as back then, when Durbe would be in need of comfort and Nasch touched him gently and pressed their foreheads together and told him in a soothing voice that  _Sir Durbe is a strong man and will get through this._ Ryoga Kamishiro is more hesitant in his physical affection, less gentle in the way he hugs Durbe back, as though he knows that he should be but can’t quite remember  _how_.

“I don’t know.”

They let go of each other, but Nasch doesn’t move. He’s just as beautiful as Nasch was, back then. But there’s a look in his eyes that’s different. A hardened look, a look of a man, not a child. The look of the king who had everything and lost everything, and when he gained it back, he lost it again. The look of the king who still, after all this time, felt the guilt and the burden of his kingdom’s death on his shoulders.

“There are some things worth remembering, though, aren’t there?”

Durbe remembers their kisses and their touches and their walks through the woods as they caught up on all the latest gossip like schoolboys and not like the prince and the knight that they were. “Yes, I suppose there are,” he says quietly.

Nasch gives him a strained sort of smile before hesitantly patting Durbe’s shoulder and standing up. “Try to think of those things, then.”

And as he left, Durbe felt the sorrow again, because thinking of those things only reminded him more painfully that he would never have them again.


End file.
